COUNSELLING: HELPLINES AND counselling groups providing services to the victims of child abuse have reported a significant rise in calls following the publication of the Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.

Service providers have drafted in extra staff to deal with the increased volume of callers, while services for victims of abuse living outside the country also said they had received a steady number of new contacts since the report was published on Wednesday.

The Rape Crisis Centre said it had been inundated with calls from members of the public, many of them first-time callers. “We brought in extra volunteers to man the phones and there has been a noticeable rise in calls to our helpline over the last few days,” Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop of the Rape Crisis Centre said.

One in Four, which was established to support victims of sexual abuse, said it had also experienced a rise in calls. “At the time the Ferns report was published in 2005 we had 533 new contacts in the couple of days following its publication,” chief executive Maeve Lewis said. Faoiseamh, set up by the religious in 1996 in response to allegations of abuse, said its Irish and UK services had received a number of calls.